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rhe News and Observer. Volume LVI. No. 70. [L®aiiO© ®OO IROcidepQDo ©surdOßim [P®dd®[p© 0m aumafl THE SIMPLE LIFE BY CHARLES WACNER (Translated from the French by Mary Louise I-Icndee.) At the home of the Blanchards, everything is topsy-turvy, and with rea son. Think of it! Mile. Yvonne is to be married Tuesday, and today is Friday! Callers loaded with gifts, and tradesmen bending under packages, come and go in endless procession. The servants are at the end of their endurance. As for the family and the betrothed, they no longer have a life or a fixed abode. Their mornings are spent with dressmakers, milliners, upholsterers, jewelers, deco rators, and caterers. After that, comes a rush through offices, where one waits in line, gazing vaguely at busy clerks engulfed in papers. A fortunate thing, if there be time v.hen this is over, to run home and dress for the series of cere monial dinners —betrothal dinners, dinners of presentation, the settlement din ner. receptions, balls. About midnight, home again, harassed and weary, to find the latest accumulation of parcels, and a deluge of letters —congratula- tions, felicitations, acceptances and regrets from bridesmaids and ushers, ex cuses of tardy tradesmen. And the contretemps of the last minute —a sudden death that disarranges the bridal party; a wretched cold th*at prevents a fav orite canatrice from singing, and so forth, and so forth. Those poor Blanch ards! They will never be ready, and they thought they had foreseen every thing. Such has been their existence for a month. No longer possible to breathe, to rest a half-hour, to tranquillize one's thoughts. No, this is qpt living! Mercifully, there is Grandmother’s room. Grandmother is verging on eighty. Through many toils and much suffering, she has come to meet things with the calm assurance which life brings to men and women of high thinking and large hearts. She sits there in her arm-chair, enjoying the silence of long Om, meditative hours. So the flood of affairs surging through the house, ebbs at her door. At the threshold of this retreat, voices ai-’e hushed and footfalls soft ened; and when the young fiances want to hide away for a monment, they flee to Grandmother. “Poor children!" is her greeting. “You are worn out! Rest a little and be long to each other. All these things count for nothing. Don’t let them absorb you, it isn’t worth while.” They know it well, these two young people. How many times in the last weeks has their love had to make way for all sorts of conventions and futili ties! Fate, at this decisive moment of their lives, seems bent upon drawing their minds away from the one thing essential, to harry them with a host of trivialities; and heartily tip. they approve the opinion of GrandmammajUien she says, between a smile and a caress: “Decidedly, my dears, the world is growing too complex; and it does not make people happier—quite the contrary!” I also, am of Grandmamma's opinion. From the cradle to the grave, in his needs as in his pleasures, in his conception of the world and of himself, the man of modern times struggles through a maze of endless complication. Noth ing is simple any longer: neither thought nor action; not pleasure, not even dying. With our own hands we have added to existence a train of hardships, and lopped off many a gratification. I believe that.thousands of our fellow men, suffering the consequences of a too artificial life, will be grateful if we try to give expression to their discontent, and to justify the regret for natural ness which vaguely oppresses them. Let us first speak of a series of facts that put into relief the truth we wish to show. The complexity of our life appears in the number of our material needs. It is a fact universally conceded, that our needs have grown with our resources. This is not an evil in itself; for the birth of certain needs is often a mark of progress. To feel the necessity of bathing, of wearing fresh linen, inhabiting wholesome houses, eating healthful food, and cultivating our minds, is a sign of superiority. But if certain needs exist by right, and are desirable, there are others whose effects are fatal, which, like parasites, live at our expense: num erous and imperious, they engross us completely. Could our fathers have foreseen that we should some day have at our dis posal the means and forces we now use in sustaining and defending our mater ial life, they would have predicted for us an increase of independence, and therefore of happiness, and a decrease in competition for worldly goods: they might even have thought that through the simplification of life thus made pos sible, a higher degree of morality would be attained. None of these things has come to pass. Neither happiness, nor broherly love, nor power for good has been increased. In the first place, do you think your fellow-citizens, taken as a whole, are more contented than their forefathers, and less anxious about the future? Ido not ask if they should find reason to be so, but if they really are so. To see them live, it seems to me that a majority of them are discontent ed with their lot, and, above all, absorbed in material needs and beset with cares for the morrow. Never has the question of food and shelter been sharp- * er or more absorbing than since we are better nourished, better clothed, and better housed than ever. He errs greatly who thinks that the query, “What shall we eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed?” presents itself to the poor alone, exposed as they are to the anguish of mor rows without bread or a roof. With them the question is natural, and yet it !s with them that it presents itself most simply. You must go among those who are beginning to enjoy a litle case, to learn how greatiy satisfaction !n what one has. may be disturbed, by regret for what one lacks. And if you would see anxious care for future material good, material good in all its luxurious devel opment, observe people of small fortune, and, above a !, the rich. It is not the woman with one dress who asks most insistently how she shall be clothed, nor is it those reduced to the strictly necessary who make most question of what they shall eat tomorrow. As an inevitable consequence of the law that needs are increased by their satisfaction, the more goods a man has, the more he wants. Th.' more assured he is of the morrow, according to the common ac ceptation, the more exclusively does he concern himself with how he shall live, and provide for his children and his children’s children. Impossible to con (Continued on Page Eight.) RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, SUNDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 27, 1904. nnn Aim tec to ai I EyUALIViILd 1U ALL, Special Contract Cannot Excuse Freight Privileges. Opinion by Chief Justice Clark in Hilton Lumber Company vs. A. C. L. Makes Stringent Rule Against Discrim inations by Railroads. In the case of the Ililton Lumber Company arrainst the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in which the plaintiff company charges that the railroad dis criminates against it in the matter of rates, an opinion was handed down in the Supreme Court last week sustain ing the contention of the plaintiff and declaring that the lumber company “had a right to have its logs carried to its mill at the same rate as others without binding itself to ship its lum ber by the defendant, or indeed to ship It at all.” The opinion was written by Chief Justice Clark, Justices Connor, and Walker concurring. The text of the opinion follows: SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAR OLINA: August term, 1904.. .172. New Hanover. Hilton Lumber Co., appellant—v—-Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Co. Rountree & Carr for appellant: Jun ius Davis for appellee CLARK, C. J. The gist of this ac tion is for discrimination by the de fendant in charging the plaintiff a higher rate on logs to the plaintiff’s mill In Wilmington than was charged others for like service, and to recov er the over-charges which had been paid under protest. The point pre sented is not that the rate, $2.50 per thousand feet in car load lots charged the plaintiff, is per se unreasonable, but that the rate charged others for the same service for the same dis tance was $2.10 ana that this is a serious discrimination which if con tinued will result in the crippling or the plaintiff’s mill and the building up of the other mills which are in competition with the plaintiff, for it has in five months amounted to $3,900 for the recovery of which this action is brought. The court charged the jury: "If you find that the rate of $2..10 per thous and feet was charged and collected by the defendant upon logs shipped over any part of its railroad to a mill or mills at which logs were manufac tured into lumber and the lumber it self reshipped over the railroad of the defendant, or any part or it, and that the reduced rate of $2.10 per thousand feet was given to such mill in consideration of such fact that they would ship th.” lumber manufac tured out of said logs over the line of the defendant’s road, which said agreement was open to all mills that wished to accept it, then it would not be an unjust or an illegal discrim ination to charge $2.50 per thousand feet, which it is not contested is a reasonable rate to mills which, did not ship their manufactured lumber over the line of the defendant road.’’ The proposition herein stated is that a common carrier has a right to charge one person a lower rate of freight than another for shipping the same quantity, the same distance, under the same conditions, provided the shipper gives the company a consideration (shipping the manufactured lumber subsequently over its line), which its managers think will make equality as to the treasury of the company, it is none the less a discrimination against the plaintiff. It is charged $2.50 while others are charged $2.10 for the same service. It is true if the plaintiff should chose to agree to ship its manufactured lumber out of Wilmington over the defendant’s line, it could get the same reduction of rate on its logs into Wilmington. On those conditions it could save itself from being discriminated against. But suppose the plaintiff should wish to sell its lumber In Wilmington, or can ship it at a lower rate by sea, or even by a competing railroad line out of Wilmington, has it not the right to do so? Should it see fit to exercise that right, has the common carrier the power to place a penalty of a 19 per cent, higher rate on the plaintiff and to charge it $2..50 for bringing its logs to Wilmington when it charged others $2.10 for exactly the same ser vice? The principle involved is a vital one to the public at large, for upon this alleged right to discriminate by common carriers (exercised either openly or secretly by rebates), nearly all trusts, and especially the Standard Oil C 0.,, have been built up to their present disquieting and menacing predominance, as has been fully shown -by the investigation and re port of the Industrial Commission and the Inter-State Commerce Com mission, both apoplnted by acts of Congress. Under the same idea that the test was the fact that the railroad company would not lose by the favor (extend ed in the present case by charging certain shippers $2.10 while charg ing the plaintiff $2..50), another rail road charged the Standard Oil Com pany 10c. per barrel while charging its competitors 35c per barrel, and paying 25c of the 35c thus collected to the Standard Oil Company. Handy v. Railroad, 31 Fed. Rep. 689. The railroad company in that instance must have found its offset, its profit, somewhere or it would not have made that arrangement. But what became of the competitors of the Standard Oil Company? Here, the railroad company wall doubtless make up out of its forced monopoly of shipping oat of Wilming ton the lumber to be manufactured out of all the logs hauled in by it, the 4<Je which is deducted in favor of those who will give it that monop oly. But why should it discriminate by rates upon logs which when turn ed into lumber are sold in Wilming ton, or shipped by sea, or shipped by a competing route? it costs no more to bring in the plaintiff’s logs than the logs for those whose hauling only $2.10 was charged. The shipment of Jogs to Wilmington is one transaction; the shipment of lumber out is anoth er. The defendant cannot charge the plaintiff higher on logs because it will not agree to ship its lumber by the de fendant’s line. It is no answer to say that if the plaintiff will come into the defendant’s terms it will get the same discount. The defendant might as well say, if you will carry your logs to a saw mill In which the rail road company is a large owner, you will get the 19 per cent reduction in freight on your logs, and there is no discrimination, for the same offer is open to you as to others. If the plaintiff, like others, was shipping logs to Wilmington with the voluntary intention of shipping by the defendant's road, say to New York, then certainly there would be no dis crimination. But the plaintiff does not wish to ship to New York over the defendant’s line, and the defendant proposes "to put the screws to the plaintiff’ and make it do so whether it wishes to do so or not, and if the plaintiff does not do so, the defendant says the plaintiff cannot be treated as well as others as to the rates for hauling its logs, but must pay nearly one-fifth (19 per cent.) higher rates on its logs. That is the very point at issue. Hauling ita logs to Wilming ton is the only se -vice the plaintiff .s »eks at the defendant’s hands. Why » tOtfhi it pay higher for that service uutn those who agree to carry their logs to the defendant’s mill or to ship out their lumber by the defendant's road? a Discrimination is a more dangerous power than high rates—if the latter is charged impartially to all. Hence the statutes of Congress and of the state, while leaving tne fixing of rates in the hands of commissions, have di rectly and strictly forbidden under penalties, any discrimination. Com mons carriers are fixed for public use. They exercise a branch of the public franchise. They can condemn rights of way solely because the land "is taken for a pubiic use.” They are subject to governmental supervision and to the reduction or regulation of their charges by the legislature di rectly or by commissioners appointed by us autnority. Munn v. Illinois, 94 U. S. 113 and citations to same 9 Rose's Notes 21-55. In all the great countries of the world except Eng land and this country, the railroads are largely or altogether owned and operated directly by ithe government, as was formerly the case in North Carolina. In all countries alike it is recognized that it is of vital import ance that corporations exercising such Public use must be absolutely impar tial and equal in their charges for the same service. All the service the plaintiff asks of the defendant is to haul its logs to its saw mill in Wilmington. For this it charges the plaintiff $2.50; it charges others $2.10, i e., 19 per cent, higher to the plaintiff than to others for exactly the same service. It costs the defendant no more to render that ser vice to the plaintiff than to render the same service to others. It must charge all alike. Could the defendant discriminate on shipment of logs to Wilmington—for a consideration of a subsequent benefit to itself by obtaining a monopoly of shipment of lumber out of Wilmington —it could seriously damage the busi ness and prosperity of that city. At that point are steamships and sailing lines and other railroads, and this competition making the town a distributing center is the source of its prosperity. If the terms upon which the defendant will haul logs into Wilmington are that it must haul the lumber out, then Wil mington ceases as to that business to be a competing point. The same dis crimination could be made (if this were allowable) in freight on cotton or corn or rosin and other articles carried to Wilmington to be manu factured or put into other forms for ase. Discrimination- rates as in this case could be charged on the raw pro duct which would permit of the manu factured article, cloths, yarn, meal, whiskey, turpentine and the like, be ing shipped out only over the defend ant’s line. This is to place the pros perity of Wilmington, and also of the producers of raw material contiguous to that city along the lines of any of the defendant’s roads or branches. In the control of the defendant. The point here presented has been often decided and always, certainly at least in recent years, against the pow er claimed by the defendant. In Bax endale v. Railroad. 94 E. C. L. 308, af ter an elaborate argument, it was held by a very strong court as to this point: “it is not a legitimate ground for giving a preference to one of the customers of a railroad company that he engages to employ other lines of the company for the carriage of traffic distant from and unconnected with the goods in question; and it is undue and unreasonable to charge more or less for the same service ac cording as the customer of the railway (Continued on Page Two.) 10 Paget-SEOTION ONE-Pae«s I to 8 MR. DOOLEY ON SIEGES. (BY FINLEY PETER DUNNE) ( ’opyright, 1904, by McClure, Phillips & Co.) “Thim poor la-ads in Port Arthur must be havin’ a tur-rble time,” said Mr. Hennessy. “Ye niver can tell,” said Mr. Dooley. “Iv coorse it looks as though they were. Ivry day or two whin Port Arthur hasn’t fallen no more or Is laid up fr’m th’ last fall, I read in th’ pa-apers that th’ corryspondint iv th’ London Fudge, a highly onprejudiced obsarver or liar stationed at hefoo has larned fr’m a Chinyman who has jus’ arrived fr’m Pekin on a junk that th’ condi tions is something that wurruds cannot describe. Says he: Th’ conditions at Port Arthur baffle description an’ stagger th’ imagination. On’y fourteen iv th’ original definders survive an’ they ar-re rayjooced to skeletons. They live in underground caves an’ cook their boots on explodin’ bombs dhropped in be th’ Japanese. Las' week Gin’ral Blinkoviteh shot an’ kilt Gin’ral Bejeeski in a quarrel over a bar iv soap which th’ former was alin’ f’r lunch. Gin ral Stoes sel has lost both aims, a leg an’ th’ right ear, but he is still cheerful an’ las’ night had his fur overcoat cooked an’ sarved at a dinner to th’ officers iv th’ Probijienky reg’mint. He proposed a’toast to th’ imp’ror in kerosene. Th’ toast was subsiquintly devoured be th’ famished garrison. None iv th’ garrison sleep at night much on account iv th’ heejous roar iv th’ Jap’nese shells which are dhropped into th’ town at th’ rate iv wan millyon a day. Me informant tells me, an’ he’s a man whose wurrud I wud accipt as soon as me own, that th’ ships in th’ harbor have been convarted into junk, which must not be confused with th’ Chinese boats iv th’ same name. As fast as they ar-re destroyed, they ar-re eaten be th’ crew. It is no uncommon sight to see a starvin’ Russian sailor divin’ in th’ harbor f’r a cast-iron bolt or some such toothsome morsel. Th’ Intilligent Chinyman who brought me th’ news escaped just as th’ cook f'r Gin’ral Stoessel was about to put him in th’ oven. Th’ Chinese are great stick lers f’r presarvin' their identity afther death an’ this man nachrally didn’t like to jine his ancesthors in th’ shape iv chop-sooey. Altogether th’ condition iv Port Arthur is worse thin ye’er readers cud imagine an’ almost as bad as they cud hope. Th’ Port Arthur Daily Melojeen, th’ on’y paper now published there, has a long kick in th’ last issue about delinquent subscribers. It is headed "Meanin’ You" an’ goes on to say that th’ iditor an’ his wife mus' live, that they have jus’ moved into a new dug-out an’ that if th’ cash is not forthcomin’, he will be obliged to mintion names.” _.:v£%».*■» ~. , “An’ that’s what I can’t understand, Hinnissy. How is it, d’ye suppose, that if Port Arthur is so bad off, they can have a daily paper? Th’ man that runs it must be a gr-reat journalist. I wudden’t like to give up me paper. It’s al! I have in life. But if I was as thin as an empty hen-coop an’ had just de voured me las’ collar an’ if I knew that I wudden’t make aven a dacint muss if a Jap’nese shell hit me but wud look like a pile iv loose lathes and shavin’s sthruck be a cyclone, d’ye suppose in thim circumstances 1 wud be polite to a man who come ar-round an’ offered me an onyx clock an’ a hatful iv thradin’ stamps to subscribe to his pa-aper? An think iv th’ iditor. What a job! He has aten a pair iv rubber boots an’ washed it down with a pint iv ink an’ he has to go out an’ collict th’ news on his hands an’ knees. Thin he has to write it up: ‘Society jottings: Oursilves an’ wife attinded a mos' joyal gathering at Gin’ral Punspinkki’s palatchal quarthers in Bomproof A las’ night. Th’ jaynial gin’ral had provided a bountiful repast—a beautifully cooked war map which he had procured at great expinee. Th’ Jap’nese ad vanced positions fell to our lot an’ we put it away with gr-reat gusto although if annything there was too much red ink on it. Our host was at his best an’ th' morning’ was far advanced befure we reeled home. Ivrybody agrees an in jyable time was had. There is no war news as th’ London papers ar-re on avoidably late an’ our corryspondint is at th’ front. Th’ nex’ time we sind a corryspondint out with a Rooshan army, we’ll sind him. to th’ rear where he can get some news.’ , “An’ while he’s getting' th’ pa-aper ready a Jap shell is lible to come through th’ roof iv his office an’ pi both him an’ th’ form so bad that nayther wan iv thim can be set up again. “No, sir. if I ain’t far out iv th’ way, Port Arthur ain’t suffering nearly as bad as I am about it. It wud prob’bly be th’ place to spind th’ winther if ye didn’ mind livin’ in a fallen city,—a quiet life, conjayrual people, comfortable an’ safe homes, little wurruk an’ some fightin’. It’s always th’ same way. I’ve wept me last weep over th’ sufferin’ iv th’ besieged. I shed manny tears on account iv’ th’ poor Spanyards in Sandago but whin th’ American sojers got into th’ town they were almost suffyeated be th’ small iv garlic cookin’ with omelettes. I raymimber how pained I was over th’ disperate plight iv th’ so jers an’ diplomats at Peking. I rushed an army over there. They kilt Chinymen be th’ thousands an’ in th’ face iv incredible misstatements fought their way to th’ dures iv th’ palace where their starvin’ brothers were imprisoned. What did they find? They found th’ diplomats in their shirt sleeves fillin’ packin’ cases with th’ undherwear iv th’ Chinese impmr an’ th’ spoons iv th’ Chinese im press. Th’ air was filled with cries iv ‘Hiruiery, won’t ye set on this thrunk? I can’t get th’ lid down since ye put in that hateful idol.’ Th’ English amfcassa dure was thryin’ on a goold brocaded vest four thousand years old, th’ Frinch ambassadure was cratin’ up th’ impror’s libry an’ th’ German embassy an" gal lant officers iv th’ Kaiser were in th’ observatory pryin’ off th’ brass fittings iv th’ tillyscopes. “So I’ll save me tears about Port Arthur till all th’ rayturns are in. I’d like to get hold iv a copy iv th’ Port Arthur Melojeen. I wondher where I cud sub scribe to it. I’d bet ye’d find it cheerful. Y’isterda.'h was univintful. Th’ Jajs threw a few 3hells befure breakfast an’ thin retired. This thing has got to stop. Friday we had a dog lamed an’ if this occurs again we will appeal tothe’ au thorities. Th’ Eschemojensky band give a concert on th’ public square an’ man ny iv th townspeople turned out to hear it. John Smithjnski -was up befure Judge Hoganenski on th’ familyar charge. Hie was sentemced to twinty knouts or fifty days. Main sthreet is torn up again. How long will this condition last (Continued on Page Two.)! i . Price Five Cents.
The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Nov. 27, 1904, edition 1
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